BRITONS are spending far less while on trips abroad despite favourable exchange rates.
Spending by UK residents while on overseas visits has dipped 16 per cent in the first six months of 2014 against the same period last year, said the Office for National Statistics. The figure, at £12.83 billion, fell despite the number of visits abroad taken by UK residents rising four per cent to 27.14 million in the first half of this year.
During the first six months of 2014 the pound soared against a number of currencies, including the US dollar and the euro.
In contrast, January-June spending by foreign residents during trips to the UK, at £8.92bn, is on a par with last year's half-year figure, which led to the 2013 year-end total exceeding £20bn for the first time.
David Edwards, head of research and forecasting at VisitBritain, said: "Tourism is an essential part of the wider success of our economy and these first six months have set us up for what could be another record year for inbound tourism."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article